Russia – the name is enough to tell you the story of suppression and surveillance in the country. It is not new for Russia to be extremely controlling when it comes to the freedom of speech and free will in the country. Russia has a history of suppressing its citizens the fundamental human rights of freedom of expression. Once upon a time, Russia was known to have “iron curtains,” which ensured that no news from the outside world enters the country or no information about Russia leaves its territory.
Continuing its custom of monitoring, Russia has many cyber laws that allow blanket surveillance of its citizens. The telecoms and ISPs are directed by the government authorities to maintain the activity and connection logs of its users for a particular period. Also, plenty of websites are not accessible in Russia, sponsoring the internet censorship in the country. Such a web restriction halts netizens to access their favorite websites (global issue), and that develops the demand of Virtual Private Network a.k.a VPNs. VPN is the only way to protect your online privacy in a nation like Russia. It is important to hide your location, activity, traffic information, and data from being used without your consent. A Russia VPN can hide your IP address, encrypts data, logs nothing and provides high speed is a necessity in the country.
The article was last updated on November 15, 2024
We know it is hard to pick the right VPN for Russia and that’s why we have done this tremendously exhausting job of testing various VPN providers and picked out the top five great VPN options for Russia. Here is the essence of our exhaustive research to find out the best VPN for Russia:
When we started digging Russia and the censorship situation, we expected to uncover some dirt as Russia holds a notorious reputation. But what we found left us shocked and alarmed to no extent. Russians need VPN as much as they need oxygen to breath because there is no fresh air available in the online world. Government authorities have so many tricky laws in the name of protecting the citizens from cyber terrorism and other ill forces.
Let’s start the outrageous revelations;
1. Data Retention Law: The Russian government was planning to implement it since 2014 and has finally passed the Data Retention Bill in July 2016. According to this new Data Retention Law, all telecommunication companies, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and even web-based services are required to store activity logs as well as communication logs. The internet providers will store the web history and traffic data for last six months and metadata for a whole year.Russian Security Services can ask the ISPs or telecoms to decode any message or data transferred on the internet. The bill was passed as a mechanism to tackle terrorism and protect the citizens of Russia.
2. Law against Bloggers: Russian government made it mandatory for the bloggers with traffic over 3000/month to follow the similar rules as huge media houses like blogging under their real name and registering with Koskomnadzor, the official government mass media monitor. This law against bloggers came in action last year in July by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
3. Russia vs Tech Giants: Russian authorities demanded from Facebook, Google, and Twitter to remove pages or links that were produced to promote demonstration and protests.
In relation to the mass data retention law passed recently, Facebook, Google, and Twitter are required to store the personal information of Russian internet users on servers present in the Siberian data centers. It will cost more than 45 million dollars to rent at least 1500 servers to store the information of Russian consumers. In fact, because of this ridiculous law, Google has decided to shut down its operation in Russia.
With the Data Retention Law currently active in the country, it is foolish of anyone to think that a Free VPN Russia can work wonders and save you from government intervention. The kind of data retention currently going on in Russia is an outright breach of privacy for Russian netizens. So we will strongly recommend not to use Free VPN for Russia and advice to avail a quality paid Russia VPN service immediately.
Anyway, we are just going to put a single name of Free VPN Russia for your convenience but we are not recommending it in any way.
VPN Gate is one the free VPN Russia that claims to provide all the features under one roof for free. It claims to hide your IP address, encrypt data and get through restricted websites. However, when our team used it, we were not satisfied with its services. The speed was poor and we don’t know anything about its logging policy. Again, we would like to stress and support quality Russia VPN with a nominal fee than a free VPN Russia.
It is time to tell a bit more about the best VPNs for Russia. They may all look similar but a closer look will reveal their differences that set them apart. It is our job to provide you analysis of different VPNs for Russia and your job to choose the right Russia VPN for yourself. Without further ado, here we go:
ExpressVPN is part of our many top country lists because this VPN is really great with a strong network throughout the world. It is definitely the best VPN for Russia because of great speed, a convenient client for different OS, and top-notch online security. Moreover, it’s user-friendly interface, proactive customer service and unlimited speed and bandwidth that it offers, compelled us to put it on the number 1 position in our list of best VPN for Russia. Express VPN also knows the true value of shareable content, hence, it also has a very active blog post section.
ExpressVPN for Russia can guarantee ultra-fast speed to Russians especially if they connect to the VPN servers present in Moscow or Yakutsk. The option of payment via BitCoin gives a fine opportunity not to provide personal details except an email address. So you can hide your personal information from the rest of the world as well as this Russia VPN.
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Private Internet Access (PIA) is for sure an impressive addition to this list of VPN for Russia as it takes security very seriously. Features like the kill switch, DNS leak protection, double data encryption and no-log policy makes PIA VPN almost irresistible. It is a VPN provider which is an excellent value for money and provides you the security, speed, and features that every Russian netizen would require. It’s smooth service and quality customer care compelled us to include PIA VPN in our list of VPN Russia.
This Russia VPN provides a three-day free trial to customers. You can contact their customer service and ask for a free trial. Another plus point for this VPN for Russia is that it’s based in Panama, which has no mandatory cyber laws. So, with affordable pricing, zero-log policy and ample servers in Russia, PIA VPN is simply a safe bet when it comes to selecting the best VPN for Russia.
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CyberGhost is a new addition in the VPN industry but definitely strong enough that it made to our list of VPN for Russia. It is in expansion phase where the company is trying to add as many features as possible. The VPN provider is based in Hungary. You can use three devices at the same time with Surshark. The packages are market competitive and provide satisfactory value for money. Definitely, Surshark is a reliable Russia VPN option.
Furthermore, we inspected its VPN software client and found it to be pretty decent and user-friendly. Surshark VPN is relatively a new player in the market, but it has quickly gained massive attention from the VPN community because of its great service and fast connection speed. There are numerous factors that make Surshark VPN a decent VPN Russia, and we would highly suggest every Russian internet user to opt for this best VPN for Russia to safeguard their online privacy and security.
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4. IPVanish VPN
IPVanish is one of the best Russia VPN brought to us by the conglomerate Golden Frog. The biggest advantage of opting for IPVanish VPN is that it owns all of its servers and not a single of its server is owned by any third party. It has its own security mechanism, ‘Chameleon’ in place which prevents any user from deep packet inspection.Second, it has zero logging policy so no record of data is available even if any authority demands it. The bundle of features that IPVanish VPN has to offer, impressed us very much and left no doubts in our mind that it would be wise to include it in our list of best VPN for Russia.It has a smooth client and easy-to-use interface along with lots of servers in Russia. IPVanish VPN is a genuinely best VPN for Russia that believes in transparency and that’s why you can see server speed, location, and periodic IP change easily. IPVanish VPN can be the savior you are looking for your online world.
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Another Russia VPN worth mentioning here is the NordVPN. It is not exactly the best VPN for Russia but the presence of six premium servers on Russian soil makes it a decent option. If you are looking for a reasonable VPN for Russia, NordVPN will not disappoint you as it has really affordable tariff in the market. NordVPN has been in the VPN market for a long time and has built a phenomenal reputation of their brand and is one of the best VPN for Russia. When we looked up into their server section, they have somewhere around 249 servers in Europe and have specifically 8 servers dedicated for Russia region.
Now, just when you say that 8 is a fairly smaller number, bear in mind that their single VPN for Russia can accommodate hundreds of Russia VPN users, and as we discussed that NordVPN is a customer-focused company, they will accommodate more Russia VPN servers when there is a greater demand from the users.It is not just about the price and servers, NordVPN has all other features of a quality service providers. It will never disappoint you when it comes to your online privacy.
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There isn’t much to conclude really. With Russia, you cannot expect any other conclusion but one i.e. don’t wait, just get a VPN Russia. The country believes in some extreme forms of surveillance and it is your right to protect your online privacy. Of course, it is not possible without a RU VPN.
So instead of waiting for a miracle to happen that might change Russia from being overly intrusive, try the more proactive approach and subscribe to a decent VPN for Russia. You don’t need a fancy VPN connection, a basic package from a genuine Russia VPN is enough to save you from the hazards of the cyber world.
However, we do have an additional tip for professional bloggers and journalists in Russia. Since the government is extremely tough on them and make their job almost impossible, they should go for a Russia VPN that accepts BitCoin payment and use anonymous email like Guerilla Mail.
We have done the half job for you already by narrowing down the list of best VPNs for Russia, now it is time for you take control of your online security and protect your personal information by signing up for a Russia VPN.